“Eogan.” I reach for him but he just shakes his head.
“I’m fine, just . . . weaker than I’d wish.” He sounds annoyed at himself. “When I discovered his reaction to you, I quit expending my energy trying to surface through him and kept my head down. He believed I was weakening, when in fact it was him.”
Compassion? That’s what separated Draewulf from Eogan’s body?
I swallow and look out over the mist-covered rock hills we’re dipping toward as the soldiers around us shout out orders and seal up the hole in the airship’s balloon. Until my gaze drifts behind us to the dust and soot spirals floating up from the battle we’re running from. And the people still there.
Rasha’s and my conversation from a week ago on this same ship slips through my head again. “Strength doesn’t lie in power. It lies in your ability for compassion.”
I peer back at Eogan. His handsome face crinkles with tenderness as I grapple with the dawning awareness that I could’ve just as easily saved him if I’d never taken on that power.
My hand clenches into a fist, but when I glance down, the fingers are curled in again along the knuckles. I frown.
It’s reverted to its gimpy state.
I let out a dry chuckle—because isn’t that the truth of it all right there. That who we are is not our abilities. Not really. It’s more who we are in spite of them. Like Kel said, “Maybe it’s more the choice in how we use them. Not everything that seems weaker is.”
If anything, perhaps who we are fuels them, in which case maybe it’s compassion that fuels mine. I glance around for the large guard, Kenan. Because apparently, compassion changes things after all. Simply because it changes people.
Again I search out the mist and smoke behind us—covering the people we’re moving so swiftly away from in an effort to save—before glancing over at Eogan who is so alive and real and standing here as proof that every act, every touch, ripples out like the ocean tides, fueled by the single hunger even Draewulf was at one time desperate for . . .
Love.
Maybe that is the true power.
But could it be powerful enough to change an entire world?
I reach up and push my fingers into Eogan’s hair to pull his head closer again as he studies me. And my heart breaks in two for that world, but it also soars with hope for what goodness that same world can produce.
It takes less than two seconds for his mouth to become present against mine.
He presses in fiercer, deeper, as he nudges me against the dining wall. His lips searing, burning my bones, setting my soul to crash into his earthen heart like sea storms in winter. Promising that love can fix a multitude of worlds and souls and wounds.
“Hello! Anyone there who can cut me down?”
What? I blush and try to pull away, peering around in embarrassment for whoever may have seen us.
“Helloooo!”
Oh litches. Lord Wellimton.
Eogan keeps his arm around my waist and raises a questioning brow at the bow of the ship.
“Lord Wellimton,” I say, smirking into his shoulder.
“Think we should cut him down?” Eogan murmurs so close to my ear it sends goose bumps down my skin.
“Probably. Just be prepared—he wants to kill you.”
He laughs and tips his head to one of the Bron guards. Then pulls me to the forward railing where we’re aiming straight over the mountains for Cashlin.
I resist turning back again to survey the sky and the land we’re leaving.
“We’ll save them,” Eogan whispers.
I shudder. “What happens if Draewulf reaches her before us?”
“He’ll take over her and the Luminescent ability.”
“And then what? He’ll come for Faelen’s King Sedric?” Will his Dark Army?
“Then he’ll come for me—to kill me in order to completely own my Medien power.”
Wait. What? “Your power has a name?”
“It does. And right now he has enough of me to use, but not enough to own Bron and rule.”
I narrow my brow. “But he couldn’t kill you. He tried and it didn’t work.”
“He’ll be stronger next time. If we fail, he’ll not only have Terrene blood but Luminescent as well.”
“I don’t understand. You mean he’s going to try to absorb you again?” The thought makes my stomach curl. The image of King Mael’s skin being torn through . . .
Eogan nods.
I know it’s selfish of me. Probably wrong to even think it, but I can’t help it. “Why didn’t he just take Odion when he had the chance?”
“Because as with Queen Laiha, I was the eldest Uathúil of my people, and thus the rightful heir. The blood is bound to our position just as our bodies are bound to our land. The higher the lineage, the more powerful the ability.”
My hand flutters to find his. “I won’t let him,” I whisper. “We’ll hide you.”
His smile is soft as he shakes his head. “I’ve hidden for the past four years. The only way to defeat him now is to fight.”